


things I almost remember

by viridian sprout (idyII)



Series: once upon a (I remember) [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Link (Legend of Zelda) Needs a Hug, Link subconsciously misses the Champions, Post-Breath of the Wild, Selectively Mute Link (Legend of Zelda), Sheikah Link (Legend of Zelda), Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:26:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22080289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idyII/pseuds/viridian%20sprout
Summary: Grieving was all that much harder when you didn't know what you were grieving.
Series: once upon a (I remember) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1589356
Kudos: 98





	things I almost remember

It followed that rarely the things Link felt could be explained in words. However, he always felt as though he needed some still. An ironic frustration that flowed over from the core of his life.

It made some sense to say he felt lost. Though, lost people usually didn’t feel as though the place they belonged was right behind their tongue. That was Link’s life: a series of contradictions. Feeling as though he was constantly out of place and wishing for something that wasn’t there, that he could never guess, but knowing deep down that (somehow) he knew. And yet it stayed beyond his comprehension. The Hero of Hyrule never told anyone this. Who could he tell? The Hylians he ran into on the road, the Zora in the rivers who seemed to remember him better than he did, Zelda?

Not Zelda. He shouldn’t tell Zelda his worries. She already worried over so much, including him.

And Zelda, was both a comfort and something that hurt to him. Because he remembered her, but didn’t _remember_ her. He remembered feelings, flashes and glimpses, and had a sense deep down in his person that at least, if nothing else, _Zelda is safe_. Yet beyond those recollections he’d managed to piece together…there were so many things he didn’t remember.

And yet somehow he knew her, while simultaneously not knowing her. The contradictions would drive Link mad.

It would come in time, she’d said. But even she’d sounded hopeful rather than sure.

It was, perhaps, that hope that made her let him loose back into the world he’d wandered on his own again. Hoping he would remember. Hoping he would stop remembering. Hoping he would stop doing this to himself. It was why he sat on a cliff in the Sheikah village now, overlooking the dim houses below, watching some sheep shuffle in their field as they arranged themselves for sleep. The sky was dark overhead, but the stars felt like they were mocking him.

Go to Zora’s Domain, she’d told him, with a smile that hid her insecurities. You have a friend there, yes? Little Sidon? Not so little, I understand. Just…take some time to relax.

He had stayed with her over a year. He would have stayed with her indefinitely, probably forever, if she hadn’t told him to go try and retain some wisp of happiness. Because Zelda felt right, because being the Hero of Hyrule ( _even though it crushed him under itself_ ) felt correct, and because Link knew it was fate he ended up there. He didn’t have a problem with fate: only himself.

Only the shreds of memories lingering in his mind, refusing to unfold and illuminate the world as they should.

Zelda had been clearly sad after they left the broken, hollow castle that first sunshine. But Link hadn’t been. That was just a failure on the behalf of the supposed Hero, that he could not even share her grief as a comfort.

_He just didn’t remember._

Suppose he never remembered, what would he do? How could he make himself a new person if he didn’t even know who he was in the first place? Would he wake up one day and feel even more wrong because he’d changed too much? Would he never remember the people who’d supposedly been his friends?

(Though he was certain that Rito hadn’t liked him much.)

And even now he sat, in silence in the dead of night, learning how to move about within the shadows because that is where he felt his life had ended up. The Sheikah had been more than willing to take him in and teach him their ways, though they didn’t know why he had come there. He had been most afraid of Impa, who would surely look on him with disapproval as he let Zelda guide restoration efforts at Hyrule Castle by herself, but the old woman did not say anything judgmental to him. She only said _rest_.

He would have stayed. He should have stayed. But Zelda would remain the Queen he served for eternity, and she told him that she would follow after him soon.

* * *

Other than their quiet footsteps, the sound of metal clashing together was the only sound any of them could hear while Sheikah trained in a little canyon just outside of town. Link didn’t think he’d met his opponent before. He was a guardsman, but Link tried to remember the name of every person he met. He didn’t want to forget things again.

His hands were small and thin, like those that had gently splashed through water and reached for his wounds. But his eyes were narrow and weary like those that had once looked at him with something like scorn.

A knife went sailing into his shoulder. Link should have been paying attention. He did not stop, as no one expected him to unless he needed more than the help of one of the fairies that regularly wandered down from the mountain after he’d awakened the Great Fairy.

“She was very, um, regal, Grandmother,” he caught Paya saying as she spoke to Impa, who oversaw things most days. “And very…pretty. Princess…I-I mean, Queen Zelda…is quite kind.”

“Haha, indeed, child. Should you like to visit again, you can. You are an adult now, you know.”

“I-I know! I shall come and go as I please…I-I mean, well, I didn’t mean it to sound like that…”

Impa laughed aloud. Link had been staring, and his partner stood there swinging a knife around while he did, then tossed it at his face when he turned back.

He wished any of the times he got hit over the head with blade handles in training would jog something inside that would make him remember.

* * *

“Ah, my favorite customer! How are you?”

Link mustered a smile. Beedle was always a cheerful person, no matter what kind of trouble and snares he ran into trying to travel all over their lands. It was a bit of a wonder he could run so fast as to outrun a Lynel with that giant pack on him.

He had felt very…down today. His mouth wouldn’t open for him, but Beedle didn’t mind. He smiled at Link’s shrug and patted the pack on the ground behind him. He’d set up in front of the general store, with permission, of course, since he sold different wares than they did. Link had caught the shopkeep eyeing the luminous stone Beedle had in his shop. “Looking for anything special today?”

Link shook his head. He sat down in the grass and pulled off the unassuming brown pack he wore over the Sheikah gear. Dumping out some herbs he’d gathered in the forest, he pointed at his hand in a gesture Beedle understood to mean he wanted apples.

“Ahah! A trade, eh? Beedle is always stocked on apples, my friend! Would they happen to be for that beauty I saw in the stable on the way in? She was so big, and looked a bit untamed, so I figured she must be yours.”

Link nodded, piling the apples into his bag one by one as he thought about the horse in question. He’d found her in the fields on the way to Kakariko. While she wasn’t blue, like he usually favored in a mount (blue was his favorite color- he liked blue and red) she was so compelling, like he was meeting an old friend. He’d managed to creep up to her while she munched on the grass, though he held no illusions that he was sneaking, as her hears were turned towards him the whole time, and after a bagful of offered apples (depleting his supply) she let him pet her.

He’d named her Epona.

It hurt when he thought of it. As somehow, it felt like he’d remembered the name, not come up with it.

(But she filled in one of the tiny cracks inside of him just by neighing when she saw him, unwaveringly loyal.)

“Is it a bad day, Link?” Beedle didn’t sound sad, and pitying, but a little empathetic. “It’s fine. We can sit here and watch the field until the sundown, you think?”

Link nodded and closed his eyes. It was easy, for a moment, to let himself relax and sit with his friend, who had never called him anything but Link. He opened his eyes again and stared at the blue of the skies as Beedle told him about an interesting village he’d passed through, far preferring it to the village around that was interwoven with tall green grass and green shrubbery. He didn’t like green.


End file.
